History YMMV / TheTemple

* ValuesDissonance: Lovecraft's [[CardCarryingVillain cartoonish]] portrayal of German navymen comes off as very jingoistic and xenophobic by modern standards.

* CompleteMonster: [[VillainProtagonist Lieutenant-Commander Karl Heinrich]], [[AristocratsAreEvil Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein]], commanding officer of the ''U-29'' during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, is introduced [[LeaveNoSurvivors sinking the lifeboats]] from a freighter he's torpedoed, making it clear he's done this many, many times before. When the supernatural begins to interfere with the crew of his ship, causing them to experience feelings of guilt and remorse over the lives they've taken, Heinrich has those effected scourged, before escalating to shooting anyone who objects or mutinies. Killing almost [[BadBoss the whole of his crew]], and aiding his executive officer in committing suicide, Heinrich dies alone on the ocean floor, a victim of his own evil as much as the supernatural.

* CompleteMonster: [[VillainProtagonist Lieutenant-Commander Karl Heinrich]], [[AristocratsAreEvil Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein]]. commanding officer of the ''U-29'' during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, is introduced [[LeaveNoSurvivors sinking the lifeboats]] from a freighter he's torpedoed, making it clear he's done this many, many times before. When the supernatural begins to interfere with the crew of his ship, causing them to experience feelings of guilt and remorse over the lives they've taken, Heinrich has those effected scourged, before escalating to shooting anyone who objects or mutinies. Killing almost [[BadBoss the whole of his crew]], and aiding his executive officer in committing suicide, Heinrich dies alone on the ocean floor, a victim of his own evil as much as the supernatural.

* DesignatedHero: The Captain, who begins by sinking the lifeboats of a British vessel, and then proceeds to spend the the rest of the story scolding his own crewmen simply for being scared and not wanting to die, eventually resorting to shooting some of them to maintain discipline. In any other story he could easily have been a horrifying villain. The only thing that really makes him a protagonist is the fact that ''he'' is the one telling the story.

* HarsherInHindsight: The depiction of the Captain can call to mind the outlook held by some high-ranking Nazi officials during WorldWarII. This is likely coincidence, since the story was written in 1920, and Lovecraft died before the war actually started.

* AlasPoorVillain: Even after committing various war crimes there is something strangely poetic about the Captain's decision to go willingly to his death.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: The tough as iron sub commander who did not hesitate to shoot his crew expressed sympathy for the dead sailor "of Italian or Greek" appearance with the ivory charm, saying he was a hapless "victim of the unjust war started by English pig-dogs". This is consistent with 1914 atmosphere in ImperialGermany, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_strafe_England as there was a wave of anti-British hysteria back then]], [[PatrioticFervor which pushed many young men to enlist voluntarily]] before they were conscripted.
* AristocratsAreEvil: The Captain is a nearly-cartoonish version of an aristocratic Prussian officer, complete with the title of Count, which would make him an exceptional figure in the Imperial Navy. Out of 473 U-Boat commanders who served in WorldWarOne, the vast majority were not aristocrats (the traditional province of officers from noble families were the infantry and cavalry troops) and only 2 held the rank of Count (Matthias Graf von Schmettow and Hans Artur Graf von Schweinitz und Krain).
* ArtisticLicenseShips: The vessel's construction resembles no WorldWarOne sub ever to sail, and it's clearly inspired by JulesVerne's ''Nautilus'' in ''TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'':
** WorldWarOne submarines did not have underwater searchlights (for what purpose? they were designed to shoot at surface ships) and most of them had no portholes, the only way to look outward was the periscope.
** Most WorldWarOne subs were designed for a 50 meters (164 ft) operational depth. They might have dived to double that with only minor hull bending, anything deeper and they were crushed.
** Combat submarines of both World Wars were not supposed to have airlocks. Combat frogmen were to be launched in small boats like the suicidal Kaiten or the Italian Maiale, or to use the torpedo tube as an emergency airlock.
** No brass-helmet diving suit could keep a man alive below a few dozens of meters and most brass helmet diving suits had no rebreather and were made to be tethered by an air hose to the launching vessel anyway.
** Sailing underwater from July 2 to August 20 on battery power and compressed air in the tanks is a bit far-fetched for WorldWarOne sub technology, underwater range was shorter than 100 miles on battery power and air tanks were relatively small, since nobody expected the sub to stay underwater for long. The first generation of subs able to do that were the nuclear-powered boats of [[TheSixties the 1960s]].

** Sailing underwater for many days on battery power and air in the tanks is a bit far-fetched for WorldWarOne sub technology, underwater range was shorter than 100 miles on battery power and air tanks were relatively small, since nobody expected the sub to stay underwater for long.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The tough as iron sub commander who did not hesitate to shoot his crew expressed sympathy for the dead sailor "of Italian or Greek" appearance with the ivory charm, saying he was a hapless "victim of the unjust war started by English pig-dogs". This is consistent with 1914 atmosphere in ImperialGermany, as there was a wave of anti-British hysteria back then, [[PatrioticFervor which pushed many young men to enlist voluntarily]] before they were conscripted.

** Also imagine that you suddenly started seeing corpses you knew floating by the portholes of the submarine, or being called upon by an unknown entity driving you to open the airlock while several miles beneath the ocean surface.

* HarsherInHindsight: The depiction of the Captain can call to mind the outlook held by some high-ranking Nazi officials during WorldWarII. This is likely coincidence, since the story was written in 1920, and Lovecraft died before the war actually started.

* DesignatedHero: The Captain, who begins by sinking the lifeboats of a British vessel, and then proceeds to spend the the rest of the story scolding his crewmen simply for being scared and not wanting to die and eventually shoots most of them (albeit after they started a mutiny and destroyed much of the submarine's systems) could easily have been a horrifying villain. The only thing that really makes him a protagonist is the fact that ''he'' is the one telling the story.

* AlasPoorVillain: Even after committing various war crimes there is something strangely poetic about the Captain's decision to go willingly to his death.

* AlasPoorScrappy: Even after committing war crimes and doing a number other horrible things it's hard not to feel bad when the Captain accepts his fate and goes willingly to his death.